N.Y. Times: Journeyman on the PGA Tour Downsizes His Life and Upgrades His Game

Apr 07, 2014

Last Sunday in San Antonio, as Will MacKenzie played into
contention at the Texas Open, he tried to keep thoughts of the
Masters out of his head. He was tied for second after a final-round
70, and then waited for the leader, Steven Bowditch, to finish.

MacKenzie, a 39-year-old
PGA Tour journeyman, knew that a win would mean his first trip to
Augusta National. But Bowditch, 30, won by a stroke, earning a
berth in his first Masters.

“It’s a dream
of mine, to play in the Masters, sure,” MacKenzie said two
days later by phone from his home in Jupiter, Fla. “But I
guess it’s a dream that’s going to have to wait at
least a year.”

MacKenzie skipped this
weekend’s Houston Open, where a victory would have secured
his place in the season’s first major tournament.

“It had been my plan
all along to take this week off,” he said, “but I
didn’t know I’d have come so close to getting into the
Masters, and my hand is somewhat hot. But I’m sticking to my
plan, and I’ve got huge weeks of golf coming up and I’m
going to prepare for those. I’ve got a chance to play in
other majors, and even though Augusta would be my favorite,
I’m going to have to try to get into it next year
somehow.”

MacKenzie is trying to add
discipline and structure to his game. In 11th place in the FedEx
Cup standings and second on the PGA Tour with five top-10 finishes,
he has put together the best season of his career. He has earned
$1,782,250, which is more than $600,000 better than his previous
best money-winning season, 2007.

But after 2007, his
earnings declined each year until he lost his PGA Tour card after
the 2011 season. Playing on the Web.com Tour in 2012, he earned
less than $50,000.

“Until about six
months ago, I was broke as a joke,” he said. “I was
living in a $2 million house with an epic view on the water in
Jupiter and getting run dry. Living a PGA Tour lifestyle on Web.com
money.

“I’m back to
living in a little townhouse. It’s fine. It’s perfect.
I’d like to upgrade just a little bit here in the future so
my boys can have a yard to play in, but I need to be
normal.”

MacKenzie has rarely taken
a normal path. Although he was a terrific junior golfer in
Greenville, N.C., he quit playing seriously at 14 after missing two
short putts that kept him from winning first-place trophies. He was
a star soccer player and football place-kicker in high school but
chose to be an action sports vagabond rather than stay at
Lees-McRae College in the mountains of North Carolina. For five
years, he lived out of a van, bouncing from ski destinations to
surfing outposts and white-water kayaking hot spots. At one point,
he lived in a snow cave in Alaska, he said, going 30 days without
showering.

“It was a pretty
soulful thing to do at the time,” MacKenzie said.
“Except for the broken bones, bumps and bruises you get along
the way from those types of sports.”

In 1999, while trying to
heal, he watched on television as Payne Stewart won the United
States Open at Pinehurst, and then went to the range to hit a
bucket of golf balls. Six years later, he was on the PGA Tour,
making hundreds of thousands of dollars. He married a swimsuit
model, Alli Spencer, had two sons, Maverick and Nash, and seemed to
be on his way.

“It’s almost like being
a drug addict who has to go to the brink before they go to
rehab,” MacKenzie said. “They almost have to die first.
For me, it’s almost like I had to be broke to realize, well,
I need to be smarter and think about my children’s future.
I’m just hoping I make the right decisions this time with the
money I’m making now.”

MacKenzie credits much of
his 2014 success to putting his life in order off the course. He
and Alli are divorcing. When MacKenzie is not on tour, Maverick and
Nash live with him full time.

“In 2010, Alli and
Maverick went to 24 events with me,” MacKenzie said.
“That was a huge undertaking, and it took its toll. I love my
family more than anything in the world, but traveling around on the
PGA Tour with toys and strollers and all that became unmanageable
for me. I couldn’t be selfish, but that meant I
couldn’t get the reps I needed to play well.

“This year, I think
I’ll have the boys with me at five events, and I’ll
have people there to help me.”

MacKenzie earned his way
onto the PGA Tour last year through the Web.com Tour finals, which
replaced the qualifying school last year, and he credited his
coach, Jeff Leishman, who works out of the Dye Preserve in Jupiter,
with helping him adopt what they both call “the
plan.”

Leishman said: “Most
of what we talk about is just repeating the same stuff. We have one
thing for his putting. One thing for his pitching. One or two
things for ball-striking. We agreed there’s not going to be a
lot of indecision on the course. When we’re together, we
check to see that everything is O.K.

“There’s been
no rebuilding of his golf swing. That wasn’t
needed.”

Part of their plan is for
proper rest, which is behind MacKenzie’s decision to pass on
the last event that could have taken him to Augusta. MacKenzie, who
is 84th in the world rankings, can rationalize.

“Last year, I felt
like I was playing some pretty good golf,” MacKenzie said
with a laugh, “and I think I was ranked No. 700 in the world.
I would say to friends: ‘Man, I’ve got to be more like
400th, don’t I? Maybe 500th? Not 700th.’ Well, now
I’m in the top 100, so something’s working. I’m
licking my chops right now, ready to go higher, but I’m not
going to change what’s working.”